


Glitched

by MysiaRi



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5621500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysiaRi/pseuds/MysiaRi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time is reset once again and Frisk is ready to make their journey through the Underground again, determined to get everyone to the surface. But why is Undyne in the ruins? In fact, other people seem to be out of place this time too. Frisk and Sans will need to work together to get things sorted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reset

Frisk opened their eyes and stared at the hole high above them in the ceiling of the cave they had fallen in. Yellow flowers pressed against their back, a few petals tickling against their face. A single shaft of light poured over them, which made them a little sleepy. They considered just lying here and wondered if Toriel would eventually find them anyway if they did.

Another reset. This time it had been different, though, but they couldn’t recall how exactly. They remembered Chara had been in control and there had been a struggle over resetting, but the details evaded them like a waking dream. Other memories were stronger, however: happier memories with their friends and making it to the surface before resetting.

Remembering why they kept resetting, Frisk got to their feet and started on the now familiar path to the ruins.

“Flowey” was the same as always. This time Frisk decided to dodge all of his attacks, though they knew it made him angry. As Flowey summoned a ring of bullets to attack them, Frisk waited expectantly for Toriel to appear.

Instead, a familiar magic spear tore through one of Flowey’s petals and Frisk was forced to dodge to avoid being hit as well.

“Alright you punks, which one of you started it?”

“U-undyne?” Frisk stammered, frozen with confusion. Flowey’s eyes widened as he looked back at the fish monsters before diving underground with a squeak.

Undyne stepped into the light shaft and looked down at Frisk with a scowl, her eye twitching as her gaze moved to the stick clutched in Frisk’s hand. “Heh, you call that a weapon human? Well, either way, if you’re here to hurt any of the monsters in these ruins, you’re going to have to get through me first, punk!” She summoned a spear and twirled it before taking a battle stance, a menacing glint in her good eye. “I am Undyne, guardian of these ruins!”

 _Nope!_ Frisk thought, squeezing their eyes shut and calling on their power to force the timeline to reset again.

To Frisk’s relief, they still had control of themselves when they opened their eyes. They retraced their steps to Flowey and the yellow flower gave them a puzzled look.

“I don’t know what’s going on but this is _your_ fault Chara! You deal with her!” Flowey snapped. “If you get out of the ruins then we can talk.” He vanished into the ground just as Undyne appeared again.

Frisk was quick to drop the stick they were carrying. _Resetting didn’t work? Why is Undyne here? Where’s Toriel?_

“A human? How did you get into the ruins?” Undyne demanded, a spear appearing in her hand though she seemed less hostile upon noticing Frisk was unarmed.

“I-I was climbing the mountain and fell in through a hole,” Frisk explained quickly, hoping to get on her good side. “Please, I’m not here to cause trouble, I just want-“

“You just want to go home, is that it?” Undyne huffed, jabbing the butt of her spear into the ground and leaning on it. “Trouble is, kid, there is no way out.” She studied Frisk for a moment thoughtfully. “I guess I can’t really leave ya here alone. I doubt you’d last five minutes. If the monsters don’t get ya, the puzzles will…ngh, alright punk,” she dismissed her spear and put her hands on her hips. “Guess I’ll have ta take care of ya until you can fend for yourself.”

Frisk sighed in relief before smiling brightly. “Thank you so much!” they said.

“Oh, don’t thank me yet, kid,” Undyne replied, her voice low but fierce. “If your gonna survive here, i’m gonna have to toughen you up-starting right now!” She cracked her knuckles as a wide grin spread across her face.

* * *

Frisk was quick to make their way through the ruins’ puzzles, remembering the solutions from past resets. That Undyne was less skilled with them was a relief as it gave Frisk the lead they needed to exit the ruins before Undyne’s enthusiasm to “help” them caused another need to reset.

They were panting and out of breath as they escaped through the exit to the ruins. The cold air of Snowdin burned their lungs as they gasped for air but it was better than the potential alternative.

After a moment, Frisk continued down the path, looking for Sans and hoping the skeleton could help them figure out why Undyne was in the ruins to begin with.  
  
They were only half way to the bridge when they felt a familiar crackle of energy in the air. It was Chara, screaming in the back of their mind, that warned them to move off the path. Frisk dodged quickly to the left, stumbling back and landing on their backside in the snow as a hot white-blue blast of energy filled the air where they had just been standing. Frisk fought off Chara’s attempt to take over their body as they looked in the direction the blast had come from.

“heh, guess i’m a little rusty if you were able to dodge that,” Sans said, stepping a bit closer. A strange skull-like creature floated in the air beside him. Sans’ left eye glowed blue, matching the glow in both of the other creature’s eyes. Frisk ignored Chara’s insistence that they needed to reload or run and got to their feet.

“Sans, I need your help,” Frisk pleaded, taking a step toward the short skeleton. They didn’t know why Sans was attacking them, but they hoped to reason with their old friend.

Sans’ brow furrowed slightly and he brought his left hand out of his jacket pocket. Frisk felt suddenly heavier and stumbled to their knees, a blue aura surrounding them.

“kid, i don’t know how you know my name, but you’ve got something i need,” Sans said, raising his hand. Frisk was suddenly hovering in the air for a moment before, with a flick of Sans’ wrist, they were flung across the path, crashing painfully into a tree trunk before being jerked high into the air and then down to the path, the snow cushioning their impact slightly. “nothing personal,” Sans said, the creature beside him opening its mouth and aiming to fire another blast at Frisk.

Frisk gasped for air, staring up at the blast. Gritting their teeth, they managed to roll out of the path of the attack before getting to one knee, a hand feeling their bruised side to see if anything was broken. They felt themselves being lifted into the air again and saw the creature’s head turn toward them, charging for another attack.

Blinking back tears of pain and frustration, Frisk tried to think of a way to make Sans listen. _This isn’t what’s supposed to happen…why are things so different? Why is Sans attacking me? He said he doesn’t know me, but…_ “That’s it,” Frisk whispered to himself. Two resets ago they had started to suspect that Sans remembered the resets or at least knew about them. They had spoken in the final hallway leading up to Asgore’s throne room and then Frisk had gone to their last “save” point they had created at the start of the hall.

_”i kind of have a secret code word that only i know. so i know if someone tells it to me they’ll have to be a time traveler.”_

_And then he taught me his secret secret code word,_ Frisk thought, gritting their teeth. They hadn’t used it before because it was even more embarrassing to say than the first code word. Not wanting to start over in the ruins, however, they squeezed their eyes shut and balled their hands into fists, hoping it would work now.

“I-I’m the legendary fart master!” they shouted, their voice echoing slightly.

They felt their body being forced downward and opened their eyes in time to see the blast fire over them, the heat from it washing over them before they landed on their back in the snow. They heard the crunch of snow as Sans approached them and struggled to prop themselves up on their elbows, trying to ignore the pain in their side.

“did you just say “i’m the legendary fartmaster?” Sans asked, stopping at Frisk’s feet to look down at them, his hands in his pockets again and his eyes white pinpricks of light in his eye sockets.

“It’s your…secret-secret code word,” Frisk said, shivering as the cold of the snow began to soak through their clothes but not daring to get up just yet.

“wow,” Sans said, a lilt to his tone as he looked up for a moment. “that’s, uh…really childish. why would you think that was a secret-secret code word? whoever told you that is a dirty liar. i don’t have a secret secret code word.”

Frisk felt like they wanted to cry again as their hopes were dashed. They started to think about returning to their “save” point when Sans pulled his left hand from his pocket and offered it to them.

“but i do have a secret secret triple-secret code word, which you just said. so maybe i should give you a chance to explain. what’s your name, kid?”

Frisk gratefully took Sans’ hand and pulled themselves up. “Frisk and…it’s a long story. Could we…go to Grillby’s and talk?”

Sans hesitated a moment before nodding, not releasing Frisk’s hand. “heh, you are looking _chilled_ to the _bone_ , kid. wouldn’t want you to catch a _femur_ out here.”

Frisk chuckled a bit but winced, holding their side.

“yeah, sorry about that,” Sans said sheepishly. “before we go to grillby’s, i’ll take you to get patched up. probably better if you avoid walking through Snowdin anyway,” he admitted, pulling Frisk closer as his left eye began glowing again. “my partner is obsessed with getting a human soul, but not for the same reason as me.”

“Partner?” Frisk asked. They were suddenly in Hotland, the oppressive heat starting to dry their clothes almost instantly. “You mean your brother Papyrus?”

“papyrus?” Sans shook his head, leading Frisk to the lab entrance. “that guy’s not my…” he hesitated before shaking his head again. “he’s the captain of the royal guard, though, _tibia_ honest, no one knows how a monster like that managed it. he’s uh…well, he’s not a bad guy, but he’s too nice and no one really listens to his orders.”

Frisk was mulling this information over as they entered the lab.

“hey tori!” Sans called. Frisk looked up and realized that the lab looked different. There were no signs of anime and things were much tidier. “i’ll go find her kid. uh…try not to touch anything,” Sans said, leaving them to look for the other monster.

_Undyne’s in the Ruins, Toriel is in Hotland, Papayrus is captain of the royal guard…what was it Sans said? Their partner is obsessed with getting a human soul? Is it Mettaton then? Where is Alphys?_

**_Why do you care?_ **

Frisk frowned at the thought. _Leave me alone, Chara._

 ** _It doesn’t matter where they are,_** Chara continued defiantly. **_We could easily sort this all out by killing them all, like we did before._**

Frisk pressed their hands over their ears, wanting to block out Chara’s voice in their head.

 ** _The best part about this is that you don’t even remember what happened to cause this,_** the voice continued smugly. **_Sooner or later, I will gain control again. You can’t fight me forever._**

 _I won’t let you hurt my friends,_ Frisk thought fiercely. _Not again._

 ** _You’ve said that before, and yet…_** Chara chuckled.

“You poor child!” Toriel’s voice pulled Frisk’s attention back to the lab. Toriel kneeled before them, one hand resting on their head gently. Instead of her normal outfit, she wore a lab coat but otherwise she was just as Frisk remembered her. There was a sense of relief as she began healing them. “Sans! How could you do this to them! They are just a child!”

“you know why,” Sans replied curtly. “and i brought them straight to you didn’t i?”

“My child, you are welcome to stay as long as you’d like,” Toriel said gently. With a smile and a gentle pat on the head, she stood again and faced Sans, her hands on her hips. “Just because I work for Asgore doesn’t mean I have to agree with him. My plan may have failed…horribly…but I will still work on finding another way out that doesn’t involve killing anyone else.”

“ok,” Sans shrugged slightly.

“You are just impossible, Sans,” she sighed, leveling a stern glare at him. “If you harm another hair on their head-“

“the kid and i will be fine, tori,” Sans cut her off. “in fact, we’re bone-afide friends now, right Frisk?”

“ _Toriel_ ,” she huffed, turning back to Frisk. “Help yourself to anything you need, Frisk. I have something I must attend to.”

Frisk nodded and waited until they were alone with Sans again.

“She didn’t laugh at your pun.”

“tori doesn’t really like me,” Sans shrugged. “can’t blame her, really. she’s got a soft spot for humans…but you know that already don’t you?”

Frisk nodded slightly. “Where is Alphys?”

Sans tsked and looked away. “probably doing the news about now. it’s one of her better shows. she’s, uh…not much of an entertainer. too shy really, don’t know why she does it.”

Frisk pursed their lips together before continuing. “Asgore is still the king, so is Mettaton in Snowdin then?”

“ _still_ the king?” Sans raised a brow, studying Frisk carefully. “maybe you should tell me what’s going on.”

“I was really hoping you would remember,” Frisk sighed. “I don’t know what happened, but I can tell you how things should be. It’s kind of confusing, but it always starts the same way. I was on Mt. Ebott when I tripped and fell in a hole…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really going to try and keep Frisk written gender-neutral, but let me know if I slip up! 
> 
> Comments welcomed and appreciated!
> 
> rimefeathermage.tumblr.com


	2. Deal

Frisk awoke abruptly, sitting up to find themselves in a bed, which was not where they remembered falling asleep. They gasped, panicking as they checked themselves for dust and almost crying when they found they were clean.

Wiping their face with the edge of the blanket, they realized they had been sweating and repeated quietly that it had just been a dream…this time.

The sound of Toriel muttering to herself from downstairs caught Frisk’s attention and they got out of bed to quietly make their way to the down escalator. They found her trying to balance a stack of books and binders in one hand, her other arm weighed down with bags as she fumbled for the elevator controls.

“Can I help?” Frisk asked, moving toward her. She gasped and turned too quickly to face them, the stack losing balance and slipping from her grasp.

“Oh! Frisk! I thought you would still be…um, no you don’t have to,” she stammered, crouching down to begin picking up her books.

“It’s ok, I don’t mind,” Frisk insisted, helping her despite her protests.

“Well…thank you…child,” Toriel relented after everything has been gathered. Frisk darted out of her reach when she tried to take the books from them and pushed the button for the elevator. “Just…just set them inside. You shouldn’t go down there,” she sighed.

“I want to help,” Frisk said firmly, stepping into the elevator. “I’ll be good,” they added, seeing her concern.

Toriel huffed, but entered the elevator with them and let them press the down button. She shifted the load she carried nervously. “Well…just stay near me. There are some…others down here…they look different but they won’t hurt you. Just…be kind.”

Frisk nodded and gave her a cheerful smile, trying to ignore how wrong this scenario felt. The elevator doors opened again into the underground lab.

“I apologize for the lighting, but my friends don’t care for bright lights,” Toriel explained as she lead the way through the halls. The room they entered was one that Frisk recalled watching videos of Asriel and Chara. The layout was different, however. Instead of tapes, the bookshelves were filled with research notes and binders. Tables lined one wall and were littered with crumpled paper balls and pens, a row of lights hanging above them, which were currently turned off.

“Just set those on the table and wait here,” she instructed, dumping her own load of books and binders before leaving with the bags.

Frisk took that time to inspect the notes in the binders they had carried down. They were all written in Toriel’s handwriting and most were simply logs and updates on the Amalgamates that lived in the lab. The books all had signs of water damage, but it was easy enough to determine they were human science books, likely salvaged from the dump. They moved to inspect the binders on the bookshelves and noticed that the spines of the ones on the higher shelves were written in strange characters. Starting on the second shelf, however, they were written in Alphys’ near-illegible handwriting. They followed along the logs until they found the last one with her handwriting and opened it, glancing at the door.

The beginning detailed the use of Determination on the monsters written by Alphys. Frisk flipped to the last page and found it was written in Toriel’s handwriting.

_ENTRY NUMBER 22_

_I just don’t know where everything went wrong. The Determination experiments feel like a dream even though only two weeks have passed. I believe that Determination may yet hold the key to our escape, but for now I will try to find another way. In the meantime, I will care for the monsters who have suffered from my enthusiasm like they were my own family. It is the least I can do for them after…_

Frisk chewed their lip thoughtfully before returning the binder to its place on the shelf. Toriel still hadn’t returned so they decided to go looking for her.

Leaving the room, their eyes were drawn to the “DT Extractor”, as the panel on the opposite side of the machine had called it. Frisk had seen it before a few times now through the resets and had always disturbed them that it looked almost like an animal skull at times. This time, however, there was something else about it that had chills running down their back. Swallowing hard, they kept their eyes on it, moving to view it from the front. They felt their heart start to pound and something in the back of their mind buzzed with fear.

“Frisk! No no, don’t stand there!” Toriel was suddenly at their side, taking their hand and gently -but firmly- leading them back toward the exit.

Frisk shook their head. “What’s it do?” They asked, realizing that they actually didn’t know.

“I…It…well, I’m not sure,” Toriel admitted, sounding unsettled. She laughed nervously. “That’s strange, isn’t it? I mean…I should know what it does, it’s in my lab. I do think it was the machine I used to extract Determination though.” She brought her free hand to her head, rubbing her temple. “To be honest, Frisk, sometimes I feel like I forgot everything about my previous experiments. Even my old notes are hard to read. I can’t really explain it, but sometimes I feel like I’m…not doing what I was meant to do in life.”

“Well, what would you rather be doing?” Frisk probed.

Toriel paused as they reached the elevator again, her grip tightening on Frisk’s hand slightly. Finally she drew in a breath and pressed the button for the elevator, the doors opening instantly. “This is what I’m meant to do,” she said, though her words still had an edge of uncertainty to them. “I feel it in my soul.”

Frisk frowned as they entered the elevator, looking away from Toriel so she wouldn’t notice. _She feels it in her soul…_

“Now, why don’t I make us something to eat? You can stay with me for now. I can keep you safe from Asgore and anyone else who might want to harm you. In fact, you could live down in the lab and be my assistant!” she smiled brightly. “You didn’t meet them this time, by my friends in the lab are kind and would keep you company. Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

 _She’s the same Toriel in some ways,_ Frisk noted. _Trying to protect me by keeping me-_

**_-locked away_ **

Frisk blinked as Chara interjected. They weren’t wrong, even if Toriel had the best of intentions in keeping Frisk separated from the rest of the Underground.

“What would you like to eat? I don’t have much for myself, but I could make you instant noodles with some vegetables or snails?”

“I’d prefer butterscotch,” Frisk responded, looking up to see Toriel’s reaction.

“Butterscotch?” she frowned, her hand moving to cover her mouth thoughtfully. “That doesn’t really go with instant noodles, but if you insist…” she trailed off as they exited the elevator. She released Frisk’s hand and stormed toward the entrance to the lab. “Get away from my computer, Sans.”

Frisk peered around Toriel and saw Sans was indeed messing with the large computer that normally showed camera feeds.

“relax tori,” Sans replied evenly. The monitor flickered back to the camera feed in Snowdin as Toriel and Frisk approached. “you weren’t here and i needed to check on something. sentry stuff, you know?” Frisk noticed that Sans slipped more than just his hand into his jacket pocket as he turned to face them.

Toriel huffed, putting herself between Frisk and Sans. “If you are done _Sans_ you can leave.”

Sans held his hands up and shrugged. “ok ok, i can take a hint. hey kid, you ready to go to grillby’s?”

“Actually, I was just about to cook for them,” Toriel said, a hard edge in her tone.

“That’s ok, Toriel,” Frisk said, darting around her and moving to Sans’ side, hooking their arm around the skeleton’s elbow and smiling cheerfully. “Sans owes me after roughing me up and I don’t want to put you out. I’ll come back later though! And…I’ll think about your offer.”

Toriel gave Sans a dirty looked before giving Frisk a patient smile and crouching down so she was closer in height to them. “If he gives you any trouble, you can call me any time. Oh!” She straightened and moved to the worktable between the large computer and refrigerator. After a moment of rummaging, she produced a cellphone from behind a stack of yet more books. She flipped it open and tapped a few buttons before closing it again and handing it to Frisk.

“I put my number in it for you. Call me if you need anything at all, child.”

Frisk nodded, accepting the device and pocketing it quickly. “I will. Thank you.”

Sans pulled his arm free from Frisk and grabbed their hand. “here we go,” he warned. Frisk sucked in a breath as they were suddenly standing in Snowdin, but outside of Sans’ house and not Grillby’s. “this way frisk,” the skeleton said, walking to the back of the house.

Frisk hugged themselves, dancing from one foot to the other as Sans fished out a key and unlocked a door they hadn’t seen before. He ushered them in, following after them and locking the door.

Sans moved to a near the entrance and shuffled some papers around. Frisk looked around the small room, still shivering though it was at least warmer than being outside. It reminded Frisk of the lab in Hotland, though it was much, much smaller.

Aside from the long workbench that occupied the same wall as the entrance, there was only a large machine in the far corner, mostly covered by a sheet. The only visible part of the machine was a console and a small screen that currently displayed strange symbols that included suns, flags, and hands among other things: the same sort of symbols they had seen on the binders in the lab.

“so after you told me that story, i came back here and had a look through my old notes,” Sans was saying, drawing Frisk’s attention to the papers spread out before him.

“see, i used to work with a team of monsters on researching timelines. we kind of thought that we could break the barrier by going back in time, but that, uh, didn’t work out. it’s a long story,” he said, waving a hand and then tapping a finger on one of the graphs before him. “but the important part is we were able to map out timelines and we noticed there was a massive anomaly in the space time continuum.”

Frisk blinked at Sans before looking at the graph. There were several lines running across the page. Sans was pointing to a small dot at the bottom of the graph.

“you said that when you restarted this time, you reset almost immediate when you ran into…undyne you called her?”

Frisk nodded, the relizatoin of just how many times they had reset the timeline sinking in. They felt gult twisting in their gut remembering just how many times they had gotten everyone to the surface only to undo everything. Not for the first time, they wondered if it was really worth everyone’s happiness and the possible damage it might be doing to the world just to try and save one more person.

Especially when there was a risk that Chara might one reset…

“these reading…” Sans muttered, pulling a piece of paper from their jacket pocket, comparing the scrawled, handwritten notations with some of the other papers. “if they are right…”

Frisk spotted a book half-buried in papers and reached for it. Sans didn’t protest -or notice for that matter- so they opened it, looking over more notes and diagrams with the strange symbols that they couldn’t read. A few photos slipped from between the pages, scattering to the floor. Frisk set the book down and gathered them quickly. Looking them over, their eyes widened as they recognized one of the photos. It was a group photo of everyone shortly after they had reached the surface: Frisk was standing in the middle with the others all gathered around them.

“even if these readings are accurate,” Sans was saying, glancing sidelong at Frisk. “and even if you could _reset_ time like that, there’s no proof that things are different now than they’ve always been.”

Frisk turned the photo to show it to Sans, the skeleton taking it and giving it a scrutinizing look.

“Also, Toriel said she felt like she should be doing something else. Maybe…maybe there’s a way to fix things,” Frisk said, their hands balling into fists. “There has to be something I can do: that _we_ can do.”

“what if everyone’s happy where they are?” Sans shrugged. “running around and trying to fix things that aren’t broken…that’s a lot more work than i’d rather do.”

“But what if they’re not happy where they are now?” Frisk asked. “Are you happy with Mettaton here in Snowdin?”

Sans turned away, still studying the photo.

“I could really use your help, but if you really-“

“you said papyrus is supposed to be my brother right? let’s start with him,” Sans said, pocketing the photo and reaching a hand out to Frisk. “we can at least see how everyone’s doing and go from there. deal?”

Frisk nodded, taking Sans’ hand. “Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments welcomed and appreciated!
> 
> rimefeathermage.tumblr.com


End file.
